Why this matters

Resident doctors provide expert, compassionate care across a wide range of services every day. And as the NHS changes to meet the needs of our population, training requirements for our staff must evolve and change too.

It is essential that training for resident doctors is high quality, fit for the modern NHS, and provides doctors with the skills they need to meet the evolving needs of our patients.

Resident doctors who currently work in the NHS have made it clear that they have concerns and frustrations with their training experience. We are also aware of the needs of the increasing numbers of doctors in locally employed posts in NHS trusts and the specialty and specialist workforce. As the people responsible for training doctors, there is much more the NHS and our partners can do collectively to improve their learning and working experience in the NHS.

We are committed to listening, addressing concerns, and improving the training pathway for the medical workforce and the benefit of NHS services and patients.

By listening to everyone’s views we can effectively plan to:

• improve the working lives of resident doctors
• enhance career progression and flexibility
• support resident doctors in delivering the highest standard of patient care

Engagement activities and key events

This programme will run through to June 2025, with findings reported in the summer. The engagement programme includes:

• national listening events
• focus groups and roundtables
• regional engagement events
• call for evidence

Call for evidence

Following the recent national events, we are now undertaking a call for evidence. This call for evidence will run for 6 weeks, from Tuesday 8 April to 23:59 Tuesday 20 May, and will form part of the Review’s evidence base, alongside the outputs of listening events, regional events and targeted focus groups with stakeholders, including patients and patient advocacy groups.

While the call for evidence is open to any member of the public, the questions are tailored towards those with experience of undertaking and/or delivering postgraduate medical education. This exercise will therefore be supplemented by engagement, such as the focus groups, to widen opportunities for different groups to respond to the Review and capture a breadth and plurality of perspectives. The questions have been informed by listening events to date, academic literature, and a desktop review into the current challenges facing postgraduate medical training and options for addressing these.

The link to the call for evidence can be found on the NHS England survey platform.